An Apathetic World Yawns

It is possible to make fun of the conference of Holocaust deniers in Tehran…. It is also possible to view this reaction as yet another symptom of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that has afflicted the West in the face of rising Islamic extremism. As long as the Arab world was united against Zionist Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians, it was possible to hope this hatred would disappear once the local conflict had been resolved. But the conference in Tehran is another sign that anti-Israel sentiment has long since turned into open anti-Semitism.

The repeated calls for Israel’s eradication that emanate from Iran, to which even the reactions of disgust have grown weaker over time, should – especially when accompanied by nuclear weapons, but even without them – have generated an active and effective worldwide front. Instead, we are gradually seeing the problem become Israel’s problem alone.

It is too early to say the world is remaining silent in the face of the threat to destroy Israel, but it is not too early to say that the world is apathetic and yawning. The Holocaust denial conference is an integral part of an Iranian foreign policy that has garnered great success over the past year after all the West’s diplomatic offers to Iran were politely rejected. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s crude appearance at the UN General Assembly, which granted him legitimacy; the evaporation of the policy of sanctions; and now, the weakening of the American promise to defend Israel, as reflected in the Senate testimony of incoming defense secretary Robert Gates; the Baker document, whose essence is removing America from the Middle East; and the weakness that Israel demonstrated in its unsuccessful war against Hezbollah – all of these provide a morale boost to the Iranians.